Ian Hale was once the deadliest operator of a top-tier private security firm. But after walking away from that world for good, he has no intention of going back. Or so he thinks.

When word reaches Hale of an orphanage caught in the crossfire of a brutal South Sudanese civil war—a war he feels partly responsible for starting—there’s no chance he won’t answer the call. But what starts as a rescue mission quickly turns into something far more dangerous.

The battlefield is crawling with killers—and not just local Sudanese militants. Hale has stumbled headlong into a complex game of geopolitical chess, where rival superpowers are manipulating the conflicts of an impoverished nation in hopes of pillaging its natural resources. When Hale discovers that one of those puppet masters may be his own country, he has one shot to stop a global catastrophe before it ignites.

With only his old partner, Laney Shaw, serving as a lifeline, Hale will fight through a war zone to expose the truth and take the fight to the enemy—because if he fails, thousands will die.

The war is coming. But Ian Hale stands in the gap.

Published
March 3, 2026
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